1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to optical information processing devices, such as spatial light modulators--or SLMs--and, in particular, relates to two-dimensional ferroelectric liquid crystal--or FLC--SLM arrays used for encoding a frame of data onto a light beam as an image.
2. Description of the Prior Art
FLC SLMs have received considerable attention recently for optical processing applications. For example, a two dimensional SLM arrays can encode a frame of data onto a light beam as an image. Very high computational speeds can be achieved by the successive parallel processing of each image frame. To modulate the FLC, it must be driven or addressed by an appropriate driver circuit, such as a silicon driver circuit. In a conventional configuration, a light modulating FLC layer is directly mounted on top of a silicon integrated circuit chip containing the drive circuitry. Configurations of this type have been described by Cutter et al. "Ferroelectric-Liquid-Crystal/Silicon-IC Spatial Light Modulator Optics Letters", Optics Vol 15, 291 (March 1990) and by McKnight et al , "Development of Spatial Light Modulator: A Randomly Addressed Liquid-Crystal-over-NMOS Array" Applied Optics, Vol 28, 4757 (Nov. 1989).
What is needed, however, are techniques for providing scrollable SLMs--particularly scrollable FLC SLMs--in which the driver is able to scroll the data to be displayed, for example, from left to right, or in any other desired direction, nondestructively. The driver circuitry for the desired scrollable SLM must therefore perform two basic functions. The drive circuitry must provide for the transfer of the information to be displayed along the line of motion, that is, the transfer of the signal from pixel to pixel. In addition, the desired drive circuitry must provide for the non-destructive sensing or analog readout of the information to be displayed at each pixel. Both operations should be performed without loss of signal to avoid image degradation and without any need to refresh the information.